Consumer electronic devices, such as television receivers, video cassette recorders (VCR), optical disc recorders (etc., DVD, MOD, CD, Blue Ray), satellite receivers radio receivers, set-top boxes, TV-PC cards, whether digital or analogue, can be tuned to a desired program by means of a pre-set program number. Within the receivers, a tuner is provided, which comprises a memory. Within this memory, tuning data for each pre-set program in the form of the transmitter frequency or channel number of the program is assigned to a program number. By means of this transmitter frequency or channel number, the receiver can be tuned to the corresponding transmission channel, and can receive the desired program.
For receiving radio frequency services, such as television programs, radio programs, multi-media programs, and the like, the receivers have to be tuned to the correct radio frequency or channel.
Nowadays, a plurality of radio frequency services is available within the frequency band. For instance, in the field of television broadcasting, radio-frequency spectrum allocations are used in the radio frequencies as referred to as Very-High-Frequency (VHF), and Ultra-High-Frequency (UHF). Each television broadcast station, or other radio frequency service, occupies one channel in the radio frequency spectrum. These channel allocations however, may vary depending upon the particular service, i.e., satellite transmission, cable service, and over-the-air broadcasts. Further, the channel allocations may vary depending upon the specific geographic area of service.
In order to be able to receive the plurality of radio frequency services on a consumer electronic device, the user has to tune the memory during installation. During this step, different radio frequencies or channels are assigned to program numbers. This assignment of radio frequencies to program numbers can be understood as channel allocation table or preset list. Within the channel allocation table, all information for receiving different programs on different channels is provided. This manual installation procedure is cumbersome and annoying to users.
One example of a known installation procedure is manual installation, where the user has to set up each pre-set channel at a time by hand. Another example is band scanning, which is done automatically, and followed by an automatic search activity for searching radio channels which transmit programs. Yet, another example is Automatic Channel Installation (ACI), which uses information provided by the network provider within the radio signal, for instance, in the teletext pages. The known mechanisms require either a lot of effort from users for doing the installation, or at the network provider side for updating the ACI teletext pages. Further, the channel allocation table can change during time, in particular, when the assignment of different programs to different channels is changed on the network operator side. Further, there are regional differences between the channel allocations. For example, within one same network operator, different channel allocations are applied in different regions. Also, when different network operators provide radio frequency services in different areas, the channel allocations may differ from network operator to network operator.
It is therefore an object of the application to provide easy installation of channel allocation tables in consumer electronic devices. It is further an object of the application to enable user driven updates of channel allocation tables. Further, it is an object of the present application to provide a region-specific tool for channel allocation tables.